Increasingly, vehicles are being equipped with sensors that generate data describing the surrounding environment and terrain. For example, some vehicles include camera systems that provide images of the terrain and/or other objects in the vicinity of the vehicle. Further, automotive active safety sensors such as radars have been used to detect the presence, reflectance intensity, and positions of objects in the vehicle's path. The data generated by these sensors may be utilized by various vehicular systems to provide vehicle control, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation and other active safety features.
However, the performance of many sensors is adversely affected by certain road, weather, and other environmental conditions. For example, the performance of a vehicular camera system can be significantly degraded by conditions that affect outside visibility, such as sudden lighting changes (e.g., tunnel transitions) or inclement weather (e.g., fog, rain, snow, etc.). In addition, the performance of automotive radars can be degraded by road debris, inclement weather, and other signal interference that result in misclassification of a radar target or inaccurate position determinations.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system that is able to detect the surrounding terrain in varying road, weather, and other environmental conditions. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.